Garment-hanger.



M. A. GILMAN. GARMENT HANGER. APPLICATION FILED NOV. 14, 1910.

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Patented May 28, 1912.

MYRON A. GILMAN, OF WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.

GARMENT-HANGER.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 28,1912.

Application filed November 14-, 1910. Serial No. 592,195.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, MYRON A. GILM sN, a citizen of the United States of America,

residing at Westfield, in the county of ,Hampden and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Garment-Hanger, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in holders or hangers for supporting wearing apparel, such as coats and trousers or jackets and skirts, and consists essentially of upper and under supporting members, and a certain peculiar adjustable or movable clamping member, all as hereinafter set forth.

The object of my invention is to produce a simple and inexpensive, but strong and durable,hanger, for either coats or jackets, and trousers or shirts in particular, although other articles of wearing apparel may be hung thereon, which hanger so supports such garments that they retain their shape, and upon which said garments may be placed readily and retained securely and from which they may be as readily removed.

A further object is to provide such a. device with suitable, adequate, and easily operated means for fastening to and releasing from the lower part of said device a pair of trousers, a skirt, or any other article for which said part is adapted.

This hanger is especially well adapted for trouserssince the latter can be suspended from the former in such a manner as to permit the creases to be retained and to avoid wrinkling.

I attain these objects by the means illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a perspective of a hanger which embodies a practical form of my invention, showing the clamping member raised in full lines and depressed in dotted lines, and, Fig. 2, a detail, in partial section, showing how said clamping member is connected with the upper supporting member.

Similar figures refer to similar parts in the two views.

The hanger consists of an upper member 1, an under member 2, and a clamping member 3. r

The member 1, which is a coat or jacket member, may be of any approved construction, but preferably has a neck piece 4 and downwardly sloping and outwardly extending shoulder arms 55, substantially as illustrated, which parts are so shaped as to fit nicely into the neck and shoulder portions of a garment hung thereon. The neck piece 4 is provided with an ordinary hook 6 by means of which the device is suspended from a suitable support in the usual manner.

The member 2, which is the trousers or skirt member, is in the form of a bar, rod or rail, preferably round in cross-section, and is suspended at the ends from the arms 5 by means of two angular rods 7 which depend from the underside of said arms near their free ends.

The clamping member 3 is so connected with the member 1 that said member 3 can be moved down into contact with the rail 2 and moved up away from said rail, and said member 3 is provided at the bottom with a part that is adapted to grip said rail and secure to the latter the garment thereon. For this clamping member I prefer to employ a single wire having its central portion bent into a double loop and its terminal portions in substantial parallelism. The aforesaid terminal portions are receivable in vertical passages S8 in the neck piece 4, which passages open through the underside of said neck piece; and the aforesaid double loop is separated at the bottom to enable it to grasp the rail 2. Each of the terminal portions or arms of'the clamping member 3 is designated by the numeral 9, and each of the rail-grasping or gripping parts of the double loop of said clamping member is designated by the numeral 10.

The arms 9 fit rather snugly in the passages 8, so that some little force is required to raise or lower the clamping member 3, and said member is made of resilient ma terial in order to enable the gripping parts 10 to clasp tightly an article of clothing on the rail 2 and clamp it thereto. The clamping member is so constructed that normally the space between the bottoms of the gripping parts 10 is less than the diameter of the rail 2, hence when said clamping member is pressed down onto said rail said gripping parts are forced farther apart, thus increasing their tension and augmenting their holding capacity.

In practice a garment is hung on the member 1 in the customary manner, and a garment, such as a pair of trousers for eX- ample, is hung on the rail 2 by passing the bottoms of the legs of such trousers, which legs should be first carefully folded on the creases and brought together smoothly and evenly, over said rail, while the clamping member 3 is in its elevated posit-ion as it appears in full lines in Fig. l, and said clamping member is forced down into the position indicated by dotted lines in said view, with the gripping parts 10, one in front and the other behind, tightly embracingsaid rail and the fabric between it and said parts. Thus it will be seen that trousers or any other comparatively fiat article thrown over the rail 2 can be securely held thereto and prevented from slipping off by the clamping member.

To release an article or garment from the rail, simply raise the clamping member until it is clear of such article or garment and said rail.

As already intimated, there is suiiicient frictional resistance between the clamping member terminals or arms 9 and the sides of the passages 8 to insure that said clamping member shall remain either in its elevated position or its depressed position and in engagement with the rail 2 and a garment thereon. As has heretofore been pointed out, too, the more the member 3 is depressed the tighter it will grasp the rail and garment, although there is a limit, of course, to the downward movement of said member as well as to the upward movement of the same, such limit in the first instance being reached practically when the double loop is opened to the full extent or as far as it can and still forcibly grasp the rail.

The arms 9 must be long enough to enable t-he clamping member to be depressed to its fullest extent and at the same time leave a sufficient portion of said arms in the passages 8 to steady said clamping member and retain it in its substantially upright position.

I do not wish to be limited to the specific details of the single embodiment of my invention herein shown and described, but desire to be protected in various changes, modifications and alterations which may come within the scope of the appended claims.

That I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is.

1. As an improved article of manufacture, a garment hanger comprising an upper supporting member, a lower supporting member, and an approximately vertical clamping member slidingly mounted relative to said upper member, in a plane approximately at right angles to said lower member, and having resilient separable gripping parts in operative relation to said lower member.

2. The combination, in a garment hanger, with a garment-supporting member, and a garment-supporting rail suspended from said member, of a clamping member having arms in sliding'frictional engagement with said member and having alooped port-ion adapted to grip and release said rail when said clamping member is depressed and elevated.

MYRON A. GILMAN. lVitnesses LELAND M. GILMAN, F. A. CUTTER.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C. 

